


Tomatoes, Olives, Capers

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An episode tag for 8x03, <i>Short Fuse</i>: What happened during the dinner Fornell cooked at Gibbs's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomatoes, Olives, Capers

**Author's Note:**

> About the title: Tomatoes, olives, and capers are the main ingredients in puttanesca sauce.

Just as Tobias was finishing the sauce, DiNozzo walked into the house, drawing up short in the living room when he saw that Gibbs wasn’t alone. “Oh, Agent Fornell,” he said, turning on what he thought was his charm. “Do I smell tomato sauce?” He’d hung up his jacket and was rolling up his shirt sleeves. Something about the shirt niggled at Tobias’s mind, but he couldn’t nail it down.

Tobias turned the heat down on the sauce, waiting for the pasta to finish cooking. “Yes, it’s puttanesca.”

“A surprise,” Gibbs said, from his seat at the table. He had picked up his knife and was slicing the Italian sausage on his plate. Tobias had been forced to assume that Gibbs had a hidden cache of manners that he deployed when women were around – or at least, the women he was interested in – because it was hard to believe he’d convinced multiple women to marry him otherwise.

“Ah,” Tony said. “Is there enough for three?”

Tobias made a show of looking at the sauce and the pasta. “I don’t know, Agent DiNozzo.” God, he loved that annoyed look DiNozzo got when Tobias pronounced his name correctly. “I suppose we can stretch it.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes and swallowed whatever he’d been eating. “Yes, there’s enough, Tony. Sit.” Tobias watched DiNozzo sit at the end of the table and pick up a chunk of bread.

Tobias tested a piece of the spaghetti and realized it was done, so he turned off the heat and brought the pot to the sink, where he’d set his colander. He was glad he’d brought it, because it turned out Gibbs didn’t own one, which had made Tobias sigh internally. Gibbs was like a fifty-two-year-old college sophomore. Tobias drained the spaghetti and returned it to the pot, then walked over and set it down on the dining room table. He didn’t bother with a trivet, figuring if Gibbs didn’t own a colander, he sure as hell didn’t own a trivet. “I’m surprised to see you here, DiNozzo. Do you spend a lot of off-time at Gibbs’s house?”

Tony continued chewing his bread and looked over at Gibbs. Gibbs said, “It’s a reward program. Tony figured out that Dempsey wasn’t alone when she shot the intruder, and then he figured out the real nature of her relationship with Tolin. So I was going to order in.” He smiled around a mouthful of food and took a swig of beer.

Tobias’s bullshit detector was screaming, but he was tired and hungry and not in a mood to puzzle through what was wrong with Gibbs’s story, so he just went back to the kitchen to get the spaghetti. He sat down and they each dished out noodles and sauce. Tony got up and opened the refrigerator, returning with a beer. For a few minutes, it was quiet, except for the clinking of their knives and forks on the plates.

“So, DiNozzo,” Tobias said, “is this as good as your family’s puttanesca?”

DiNozzo gave a bitter smile. “I wouldn’t know. My father’s spent most of his life pretending he isn’t Italian, and my mother was a WASP who married him to rebel against her parents.” He smiled widely and took a bite of bread. It occurred to Tobias why Sacks enjoyed arresting DiNozzo so much. Tony swallowed the bread and said, “But it’s really good, Fornell.” The smile became something softer, more genuine. Tobias nodded his thanks. Tony seemed to settle into his chair a bit, relaxing his shoulders.

It went like that for awhile longer, bantering and bullshitting. And then Gibbs slipped up. Tony was in the middle of a story about someone he’d worked with in Baltimore, a case that somehow involved a Laundromat, a tube sock, and a public indecency arrest, when Gibbs used his fork to spear a slice of sausage on Tony’s plate and pop it in his mouth. It was like thinking through a case, when the last tumbler in the lock fell into place and everything became clear – the suspect, the motive, how the evidence they’d already found supported his new theory.

Gibbs and DiNozzo had a thing.

It was so shocking that Tobias knew he had to keep his mouth shut for awhile and process it. He nodded through the rest of DiNozzo’s story, laughed in the appropriate places, finished his dinner and his beer. He didn’t swing that way, but he acknowledged that DiNozzo was a good-looking man. It was harder to accept that _Gibbs_ swung that way, but a few decades in the FBI had proven that people’s surfaces hid a lot of things. It was risky as hell, considering that Gibbs was DiNozzo’s supervisor. If it ever got out, every case they’d ever investigated together would be up for retrial.

The next thing he realized was that his surprise dinner had screwed up whatever plans Gibbs and DiNozzo had made for the night. No wonder DiNozzo had looked so taken aback. And no wonder Gibbs’s cover story had been so shitty. Tobias felt a little guilty until he remembered that he’d spent a couple of hours shopping and cooking to make this meal, and rationalized that guilt was for criminals.

Tony shoved his chair back and stood up. “Here, I’ll load the dishwasher,” he offered, stacking the plates and heading toward the kitchen. Tobias was surprised the guy was so eager to help, but not as surprised as he’d been that afternoon when he checked out the kitchen and realized Gibbs owned a dishwasher, but not a colander. Then he’d remembered what Diane was like, and decided that Gibbs must have installed the thing for one of his wives and just left it in the kitchen after the divorce.

Tobias and Gibbs brought the rest of the dishes and pans into the kitchen, and Gibbs emptied them into the garbage. There wasn’t much left, which was just as well. All of them were the type of guy who ignored leftovers in the fridge until the containers started moving. Tony rinsed off the china and silverware and pans and stacked them in the dishwasher. Tobias was surprised he was so efficient, until it occurred to him that Gibbs wouldn’t put up with inefficiency from anyone on his team.

Gibbs opened the fridge and looked over his shoulder at Tobias. “Another beer?”

Tobias shook his head. “Nah, thanks. I’d better get going. If I have another beer I’ll just have to get out of bed twice to pee, and that’ll tick me off.” He turned and walked through the dining room and living room to the entry, picking up his coat from the couch along the way. “That’s my colander and chef’s knife in the dishwasher. I’ll pick ‘em up later.”

“Thanks for dinner, Fornell!” Tony shouted from the kitchen.

“My pleasure, DiNozzo!” Tobias stopped at the door to put on his coat, turning back to face the hall – and Gibbs. It was dark in the hall, but there was so much light coming in through the door and the window next to it that Tobias could see his face easily. Adjusting his collar, he kept his voice low. “I figured it out, Gibbs.”

Gibbs’s voice was quiet, too. “Figured out what?”

“You and DiNozzo.” Tobias looked him in the eye.

Gibbs took a breath. “Fuck.” He put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor for a few seconds, then back up at Tobias.

Tobias stepped a bit closer to Gibbs. “I’m not going to say anything, you know that. But shit, Jethro, do you know how big a risk you’re taking?”

“Yes,” Gibbs said, his voice clipped.

“If even one defense attorney gets hold of it, it’ll be open season on NCIS.”

“I. know.” Gibbs bit off the words in a way that made it look like he was about to fly off the handle.

“Hey, I’m just asking if it’s worth it.”

Gibbs looked over his shoulder at DiNozzo, who was wiping down the kitchen counters, oblivious to their conversation. Gibbs turned back to Tobias and sighed. “Yeah, it’s worth it.”

“Okay, then,” Tobias said, turning to open the door. He paused with one foot in the house and one on the porch. “I’ll come by tomorrow to pick up my stuff.” He heard Gibbs thank him before he shut the door. Tobias started down the front walk toward his car. He’d recognized the expression on Gibbs’s face, when Gibbs had turned to look at DiNozzo in the kitchen. He had been performing a mental calculation. It was the same look Tobias had whenever he asked himself if getting to have Emily was worth all the pain he’d gone through with Diane. Always, the answer was yes.


End file.
